FOXY, I refer you to the first topic raised on today's OLO - Another interesting version written about David HICKS.

Accordingly I've nothing else useful to say to you. Your one eyed perception of this loathsome creature absolutely astounds me.

o sung wu,

Apologies for not replying sooner. The people and the soldiers of the US and Australia would have wanted the Vietnamese nationalists to be successful.

That was not to be and there is a good chance that trying to protect the Vietnamese against the incursion of the Communists played into the Communists' hands. Communists excel at muddying the waters and fomenting strife.

While there are those who see everything as political (and that impacts on the return of the Diggers too), history is more political narrative than anything else.

You were talking about something else. You were comparing and contrasting the leftists' perception and treatment of the returning Diggers, and their lauding and hero worship of failed Jihardist and failed Muslim, Hicks (previously Mohammed Darwood and other names) and seeking some explanation, some meaning, for it.

As you have found, all you got in return from the ardent Hicks supporter Fox for instance, was more broken-record narrative.

All I can do is confirm what you already know, that where ideology is the master and the leftists have no concept of morality, just politics, why would you expect any different?

No-one is to know what could have been the destiny of Vietnam and surrounding countries if the US had not accepted the responsibility it perceived to maintain some balance. Maybe Vietnam could have been fighting its traditional enemy China, now Communist and with the support of Russian military equipment and technology.

That is where the sight-impaired (and morality impaired) leftists get it wrong of course. If they imagined the US to be imperialist, there were others on the ground already after the raw materials in SEAsia.

'morning to you ONTHEBEACH...

I'm sorry for my delay in responding to your latest thread, last evening I was just too tired to do anything but sleep !

Do you ever worry what would happen if we (Australia) were needed to be placed on a 'war footing' ? No doubt our military are very efficient and well equipped to repel any small incursions on our sovereign territory. But what about this insidious internal thrust we've experienced with Islamic radicals ? In any strength, they'd prove quite a problem ?

I suppose my concerns are essentially unfounded, given our police are pretty good, backed by our intelligence services. That aside, say we are threatened by a sizable force, a force superior in numbers than ours ? The Indonesians as a example ? If our government urgently needed to rapidly increase the size of our military capacity ?

My question is, who out there in our community would we draw upon, to supplement the current numbers of our existing military response ? I wonder how many of the 'Left' would step forward and join up ? The many academics who are comfortably ensconced in our many tertiary institutions around the country ? Though, there are some academics that I know personally, who would be amongst the first to volunteer to take up arms to defend our country ? I'd bet there would be many more who wouldn't !

And how about the Union movement ? How many of our august union leaders do you suppose would be amongst those to join up ? And do you recall, that shameful incident concerning the embargo by Wharfies from loading material and personal goods for the Aussie troops who were fighting in Vietnam on the 'HMAS Jeparit' bound for Vietnam ? Still, that was nearly fifty years ago now. I guess if an enemy were to knock on our door, for the purpose of invasion, I'd like to think EVERYONE would step up to the plate, and defend our nation ? What do you think, ONTHEBEACH ?

Foxy,

While I agree that the treatment that Hicks got in Guantanamo was reprehensible for a western country, there is another side of the story. Before you go too far in green washing Hicks and calling him a freedom fighter, there are a few pertinent facts that can't be ignored.

1. Hicks went to fight with Al Qaeda not the Taliban and boasted of personally meaning Bin Laden. Had he completed his training there is a strong likelihood that he would have been used for some of the barbaric acts that AQ was infamous.
2. Al Qaeda's credentials as terrorist organisation were well established prior to 2001 with several attacks such as the one on the USS Cole prior to 9/11.
3. Hicks was not exonerated, rather his conviction was overturned on the basis that he could not be convicted of a crime that was not on the books at the time he committed it.

So while Hicks is the victim of bad behaviour by the US, he is far from as pure as the driven snow as many from the left are trying to portray.

o sung wu,

Rudd and Gillard with her Greens sidekicks have shown the world and particularly our neighbours that at least where labor governments are concerned, Australia was unconcerned about its porous borders and is spineless, reluctant to define, assert and defend those borders.

All Indonesia for example has to do, is wait for another federal Labor government and land a few thousand of its people in the NT. It doesn't have to be all at once. The Labor and Greens response would be to set up Centrelink offices and revel in the praise of the UN for being such a fat and dumb white-ass country as to bend over and take it.

An invader need not invade. Just keep landing people, claim they need room to live for their teeming populations and then send its police and army to 'keep order' against local 'racists' who refuse to hand over their land.

G'day ONTHEBEACH...

I sincerely hope you're wrong ! Somehow, the way Tony ABBOTT is going at the moment, you may well be proved right ! Thanks mate.